Rig a socket 939 Mobo for 64 + PCI Exprs

[ulindel]

Hi,
For 15 yrs building my own PCs & present Mobo Jetway V266, BusClck:133mghz, AMD Athlon 1800xp
& 512 PCI33 sdrams etc.

I propose to self upgrade to a socket 939 Mobo for AMD

[the_autopilot]

OK, well, tell us your first step and we'll give you an diea of the horror that lies ahead...muhahahaha. LOL

OK, first off:
SATA: Get a motherboard that supports this. Get a hard drive that supports this. And connect the two and give the hd a line to the PSU and thats it. thats Serial ATA. No master/slave crap. Thats essentially what SATA is. A new type of connection thats a lot better than PATA.

Socket 939: Make sure to buy registered memory, thats its advantage over the pervious socket 940.

Mobo: I recommend the nfore4 chipset from Nvidia. Its s939 and PCI-E.

RAID: Many mobo's including the above mentioned neforce4 have built in RAID, though its limited. I suggest a RAID 0+ 1 array. It offers a performence increase. It does not however have redundency, but that is ok for most consumers.

[ulindel]

Thank you, BUT steady on.

The only CPU / Grfx demanding thing I use is FS9.

I saw "ECS KN1 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra) ...... four SATA2 channels via the NVidia CK8-04 chipset as well as two standard SATA through the SiS180 controller all of which offer RAID 0, 1, 0+1........  s939 / PCIxprs,  etc, etc.

Any other makes are there near

[Rivers]

Socket 939 doesnt require registerd memory

[Rivers]

Well Raid has been around for ages, it is when you hook 2 or more HDs together to work as if they were one.
SATA is a new standard for HDs it stands for serial ATA instead of the parallel connection used in the ultra ATA standard, but at the moment you can easily get a motherboard that supports your ultra ATA HD and SERIAL ATA so you will be future proof.



Registered memory is a more expensive memory usually required by processors like Opteron and Itanium.

You should get two 512 MB sticks of Dual Channel DDR 400 also known as pc3200 memory.

[ulindel]

Thanks Rivers, BUT will my present IDE HD do?. I only need this one. Will it hook up?
The above mentioned mobo says :-
IDE:-  2x ATA133 compliant port from CK8-04 ultra,         1xATA133 compliant port from SiS
SATA RAID:-  RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1 from CK8-04 Ultra and SiS180

Are these what you mentioned for future proof?.

[Rivers]

Yes your present HD is probably ATA 100 or 133

[the_autopilot]

Socket 939 doesnt require registerd memory

Yes, like a computer does not need a gfx card technically.

However, the major advantage to socket 939 over AMD's old and discarded socket 940 is registered memory. Registered memory boosts performence by quite a bit and is NOT only for opterons and other server class CPU's.

However, considering your budget. It might be wiser to upgrade to this later.

[the_autopilot]

Thanks Rivers, BUT will my present IDE HD do?. I only need this one. Will it hook up?
The above mentioned mobo says :-
IDE:-  2x ATA133 compliant port from CK8-04 ultra,         1xATA133 compliant port from SiS
SATA RAID:-  RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1 from CK8-04 Ultra and SiS180

Are these what you mentioned for future proof?.

Yes, you can hook up your current HD. Then later, you can upgrade to a SATA HD. However, if you use PATA, you will have to deal with master and slave configuration, something even I hate to mess with.

[the_autopilot]

[quote]
For a gfx card, it depends on what CPU you will be getting.
For about 150 euro (about 200 USD), you can get a 6600 gt. It runs fs9 with decent frame rates at semi-good quality. If you want the most bang for your buck and great gfx, I'd go with the x850 pro or the 6800 gt (but both are more exspensive).

[Ivan]

Yes, like a computer does not need a gfx card technically.

However, the major advantage to socket 939 over AMD's old and discarded socket 940 is registered memory. Registered memory boosts performence by quite a bit and is NOT only for opterons and other server class CPU's.

However, considering your budget. It might be wiser to upgrade to this later.

registered memory is a little slower actually, but the small chip that is added to the memory module can address twice the amount (so no more 512MB/Module max, but 1 GB/Module and more)

Your old memory sticks won't work on the new one...

My checklist for this kind of project is:
- Get a reasonable CPU (mid-range Athlon 64, or the fastest Sempron, which is a 32bit limited Athlon 64)
- Check if your current PSU does at least 300W. Replace it when it gives less
- Get a Motherboard from a make that has been around for a while. IMO MSI is OK for normal - medium use, but go for Asus or other medium/high priced ones if you plan to go to the limits.
- Chipset: nForce is one of the fastest available for AMD

Master-slave is easy (don't believe it if someone says it's difficult)
Each cable can only have two devices one is master, the other is slave. If you have one device on a cable it should be master

[ulindel]

Thanks Ivan,

1. Do you mean this Registered Memory below  is better than the second one?
DDR PC3200 CL=3 REGISTERED ECC DDR400 2.6V 64Meg x 72

[the_autopilot]

registered memory is a little slower actually, but the small chip that is added to the memory module can address twice the amount (so no more 512MB/Module max, but 1 GB/Module and more)

I never said it was slower. I said it boost performence.

Master-slave is easy (don't believe it if someone says it's difficult)
Each cable can only have two devices one is master, the other is slave. If you have one device on a cable it should be master

Its not difficult, but its tedious, at least IMHO. SATA is simply better. I see very few reason to go with PATA.